Ouarzazate (and region)

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Ouarzazate(Ar./Berb. Warzāzāt) was the region with the last major Jewish settlement on the southern slopes of the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco before one entered the southern interior toward Sous and the Sahara. The origins of the Jewish community are unknown. The first detailed reference to the cluster of communities in Ouarzazate comes from Charles de Foucauld, who visited the region in 1883. He noted that Tikirt was the largest Jewish settlement in the region. In the second decade of the twentieth century, Nahum Slouschz reported that about 240 Jews lived in the valley of…